Years had passed since their high school days. The two began dating after Isabelle sunk into a depression and began drinking heavily. Jory helped her to stay sober though, thankful for everything Jory had done for her they began dating when they were each around the age of 22. By this time Jory had been working in the steel mill and living on his own while Isabelle worked at a 24 hour convienent store just down the street.
Jory would often go to the little corner store on his break and visit with Isabelle while he got something to eat or drink. Though the area around the steel mill wasn't the best of places, with a high crime rate, and over all shitty neighborhoods. One night Jory was out on break walking to the corner store when he saw a man inside wielding a gun. Jory ran bursting through the door to the store taking the man by surprise as he tackled him into one of the display racks. Isabelle jumped slightly behind the couunter before Jory climbed on top of the man slugging him in the jaw only after knocking the pistol out of his hand sending it sliding across the floor. Afterwards Jory got up turning his attention to Isabelle, "You ok?" He asked.
She put her hands on her hips, "How do you always have such perfect timing!?" Jory shrugged as the man got to his feet and ran out the door all the while holding his jaw. Jory looked over his shoulder watching the man run out then walked over and picked up his discarded gun walking over to Isabelle as he set it on the counter. "Isabelle. Why don't you hang onto this in case one day... I don't make it..." She raised an eyebrow before nodding and taking the pistol tucking in the back of her pants.
Afterwards Jory bought some food and talked with Isabelle for a bit before finally leaving the store to go back to work. On his way he came to a stop seeing two men cornering a woman in an alleyway. Jory placed his hands in the pockets of his denim jump suit as he approached the three, "Hey! Why don't you punks beat it before you get hurt!?" Jory shouted angrilly.
One of the men aimed a gun at Jory chuckling a bit, "Perfect timing! It's the hero from the corner store I told you about bro." the other man released the girl letting her scurry off running away. "You don't say... Put that toy away." the other man replied smacking the gun out of his younger brothers hand.
"Johnny what's up? Why you bein so wierd?" The man from earlier asked. Jory raised an eyebrow in confusion before suddenly looking at the man "Johnny"s face. Johnny pushed his younger brother back stepping towards Jory, "This is the guy that disfigured me in highschool over a stupid slut in the bathroom."
Jory jumped forward grabbing Johnny by the collar and slamming him back against the wall before holding him there, "Your a sick fuck..", Jory replied before suddenly feeling a sharp pain in his gut. He looked down to see Johnny thrusting a knife into him. Blood dripped out onto the ground as Jory grew furious gripping Johnny's collar tighter as suddenly spun tripping Johnny over his hips and back before slamming him down hard on the ground. Then, before Jory would begin to pound at the mans already screwed up face, a gun shot rang out and Jory dropped to the ground like a rag doll. Johnny got to his feet eye's wide with terror as he looked back to his younger brother who still held the smoking gun.
"Why in the hell did you do that!?" Johnny questioned walking over and slugging his little brother in the face, "Cmon let's get out of here before the cops come!", he exclaimed before they both ran off.
Jory laid on the ground writhing in pain as he clutched the now gaping hole in his side and felt the warmth of his blood pooling on the ground around him. Jory's eye's trembled in pain as the the sound of cop sirens rushed passed the alley off to deal with something else, they never even really knew he was there.
Jory's vision grew dark and blurry as thought's of Isabelle passed through his head and he clenched a fist, "I can't die now...", He spoke lowly as he struggled getting to his knee's, "I don't have time for that people still need me around...", He continued now raising to his feet stumbling over to a trash can leaning against to support himself as he tried to at least make his way out to the main roads where he could possibly be found and saved as each time he moved it caused his wound to ooze more blood.
Something shined brightly in the sky amongst the stars before a stream of light shot down from above slamming into Jory's chest throwing him back into the very alley he was trying to leave. As he laid on his back looking up t the starry skies he began to lose consciousness.
Jory saw himself in the third person, simply floating in a sea of blackness, "Where am I?", He watched his mouth move as his voice simply echoed all around him, "What's... Happening?", He was overtaken by a strange sensation as a bright light shot out of his chest right where the light from the sky had stricken him. "Why does thou fight?", An erie voice echoed throughout the darkness. Jory lifted an eyebrow to the strange response before visions of Isabelle forced themselves back into his mind.
"I fight to protect...", Jory seemed to blurt out. There was a brief pause before the ominous voice spoke once more, "Thou protects no one but those he cares about...", Jory grew furious thinking back to the woman he had just saved in the alley, "Bulshit! You don't know anything about me!", he replied quickly.
A chuckle echoed around him, his anger seeming to please whatever being was speaking to him. "Hmm thou has the will of a strong warrior... But.. How can one protect others when he can't even protect himself...", Jory seemed to retract at this comment. The voice was right, though alot of people thought Jory was strong he often felt he wasn't strong enough.
"Thou has pure ambitions but emotions keep the mind convolluded.. Do well not to lose who you are. And remain noble to thous ideals.", Jory looked around a bit confused as his body vanished, now all he could see was darkness, "Are you ready to accept your destiny Jory?", Jory blinked a few times obviously confused to what was really going on but soon he nodded somewhat.
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Soon after Jory awoke, though it was still to dark to see anything and where he was, was cramped and cold. It felt like he was laying on a hard metal table, naked at that. Using all his limbs, as he couldn't move around much at all, Jory felt around before feeling some sort of lever with his foot. Stretching for a moment or two he was able to lift the lever unlocking a hatch at his feet. Feeling the table he was on move a bit as the hatch opened, Jory placed his hands over his head against the cielling and pushed himself out of the hatch.
Lifting an eyebrow he looked around, "Son of a...", He muttered realizing he was in the morgue and further more pronounced dead! At least that's what his toe tag told him. Luckily there wasn't anyone around at the moment, so Jory ripped off his toe tag and climbed down from the table space he had pulled himself out of. As he looked around for some type of clothing to cover himself up with he caught his reflection in a mirror and paused gazing at his hair.
It was brown before, but now it had turned white. When did this happen? seeing this made Jory realize there was more to his dream then he thought. And if he stayed here he'd prolly just become some kind of lab experiment. Hearing a door down the hall from the room he was in shook Jory from this thought and he looked around a bit more quickly then before. Finding a long white coat he draped it over himself before pressing himself in the corner of the room closest to the door.
The mortician walked into the room and upon seeing Jory's table out with no body on it caused him to pause as Jory simply slipped out the door right behind the man. Being careful not to attract attention to himself it was relatively easy for the now white haired man to escape the morgue as it was actually pretty late in the night. Though he did have to break the door to get out setting off an alarm in the process.
Shattered glass laid at his feet but he didn't care he was focused on his current goal, which was to get out of there before local authorities turned him over to some whack job scientist. Jory ran across the glass in his bare feet, and out into the rainy night of the city. Plenty of the shards sinking into the meat beneath his feet he cut into an alleyway down the street and leaned against a wall catching his breath before sliding down to a sitting position and beginning to remove the glass from his feet.
Letting out a sigh Jory looked to his feet blinking a bit as he then noticed the cuts were beginning to heal almost as soon as the shards of glass were removed. "Well... That's new...", he muttered to himself before hearing police sirens in the distance. Heaving himself up to his feet Jory ran the opposite way down the alley as his wounds healed.
He quickly made his way home to his apartment easily breaking in, as he had locked himself out on more then one occasion, and then closed the door behind him. He didn't want to stay long if the cops were looking for him this would probably be the first place they looked. Going to the bathroom he hopped in the shower real fast to wash away the dead person smell as well as the blood on his feet, before making way to his bedroom where he got dressed.
Pulling on a pair of jeans he wrapped a leather belt through each of it's loops before tightening it till it was snug and then put on his steel toed work boots. As he got dressed he couldn't help but to think about Isabelle. He had to let her know he was still alive. And if she was in danger, he had to protect her. Finally pulling a black t- shirt over his head, Jory walked over to his nightstand opening the drawer. "I hoped I would never have to use this....", He muttered lowly to himself before pulling out a pistol his Foster Father had giving him when he found out Jory was moving to the city.
Making sure it was loaded and working properly Jory put the safety on before tucking the gun into the back of his waist band. He then walked to the closet and opened it taking out a tight brown leather coat. The arms had stripes going up them and it looked as though it were designed for racing. Picking up a set of key's Jory was about to leave when he paused at the door knob. An erie feeling swept over him as though someone was on the other side waiting for him.
It was then the door burst open and Jory flew back drawing his pistol as a group of fully armed men entered his living room. Planting his feet Jory quickly recovered taking aim on the men, "Put the gun down kid..", A kid in a black and white suit spoke entering the room behind the grunts. He had shoulder length blonde hair and wore sunglasses, though he looked like he was just some teenager.
Jory was planning what he was going to do, they had way more lead than he did and it looked like they all wire bullet proof armor except for the kid. They weren't the police though, they had nothing identifiable on there uniforms. Plus they seemed way to efficient to be just some thugs. Seemed like either a group of mercenaries, or assassins. Jory stepped back somewhat causing one of the men to open fire.
Jory raised his arms expecting to be hit by the bullets of the fully automatic weapon which was fired at him. Though to his surprise he wasn't. Opening his eye's he could see some kind of field around him causing the bullets to glance away and ricochet hitting one of the gun toting gent's and knocking him off his feet before another simply lobbed a grenade at Jory's feet.
The kid in the suit grew furious grabbing the one who threw the grenade and threw him to the ground in front of it, "Damned rookies! They want him alive!", He shouted diving behind cover just as the grenade went off. The explosion launched Jory perfectly out his living room window and plummeting two stories before landing hard on the back of a large black box truck pretty much destroying it.